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Role of microstructure in the electron–hole interaction of hybrid lead halide perovskites

Nature Photonics volume 9, pages 695–701 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Organic–inorganic metal halide perovskites have demonstrated high power conversion efficiencies in solar cells and promising performance in a wide range of optoelectronic devices. The existence and stability of bound electron–hole pairs in these materials and their role in the operation of devices with different architectures remains a controversial issue. Here we demonstrate, through a combination of optical spectroscopy and multiscale modelling as a function of the degree of polycrystallinity and temperature, that the electron–hole interaction is sensitive to the microstructure of the material. The long-range order is disrupted by polycrystalline disorder and the variations in electrostatic potential found for smaller crystals suppress exciton formation, while larger crystals of the same composition demonstrate an unambiguous excitonic state. We conclude that fabrication procedures and morphology strongly influence perovskite behaviour, with both free carrier and excitonic regimes possible, with strong implications for optoelectronic devices.

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Figure 1: Temperature-dependent transient absorption spectra of MAPbI3 meso phase and capping layer.
Figure 2: Photo-induced excited population of MAPbI3 as a function of crystal size.
Figure 3: Photo-induced excited population of MAPbBr3 as a function of crystal size.
Figure 4: Multiscale numerical Monte Carlo simulations of dipole alignment in methylammonium lead iodide.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 604032 of the MESO project, under grant agreement 316494 (DESTINY), the EU Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 643238 (SYNCHRONICS) and from Fondazione Cariplo (project GREENS no. 2013-0656). J.M.F. is funded by the EPSRC (EP/K016288/ and EP/M009580/1), and A.W. is supported by the European Research Council (project no. 277757). The authors thank S. Neutzner for help with fs-TA experiments and W. Xu for help with sample preparation. The authors thank E.T. Hoke, E.R. Dohner and H. Karunadasa for discussions and for providing the single crystal. The authors thank L. Manna for discussions and access to the XRD facility.

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Author notes

  1. Giulia Grancini and Ajay Ram Srimath Kandada: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nano Science and Technology @Polimi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Giovanni Pascoli 70/3, Milan, 20133, Italy

    Giulia Grancini, Ajay Ram Srimath Kandada, Alex J. Barker, Michele De Bastiani, Marina Gandini, Guglielmo Lanzani & Annamaria Petrozza

  2. Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies and Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Jarvist M. Frost & Aron Walsh

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università degli Studi di Padova, via Marzolo 1, Padova, 35131, Italy

    Michele De Bastiani

  4. Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza L. da Vinci, 32, Milano, 20133, Italy

    Marina Gandini & Guglielmo Lanzani

  5. Department of Nanochemistry, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, Genova, 16163, Italy

    Sergio Marras

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  1. Giulia Grancini
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Contributions

G.G., A.R.S.K. and A.J.B. performed the transient absorption measurements. M.G. and M.D.B. prepared the samples and characterized them by SEM. S.M. performed XRD and SEM characterization. G.G., A.R.S.K., G.L. and A.P. analysed the optical spectroscopy data. J.M.F. and A.W. performed the multiscale modelling and analysed the results. The manuscript was written with contributions from all authors. A.P. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Annamaria Petrozza.

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Grancini, G., Srimath Kandada, A., Frost, J. et al. Role of microstructure in the electron–hole interaction of hybrid lead halide perovskites. Nature Photon 9, 695–701 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.151

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